West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to ask for a special financial package of R12,000 crore from the Centre while also asking it to restructure the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) loans she inherited from the previous government. The government currently has a debt burden of R2.3 lakh crore, of which a major chunk is from the RBI on account of overdraft and ways-and-means allowances.

With the Trinamool Congress being a key ally in the United Progressive Alliance government, Banerjee will try to get the most for the state when she meets Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday.

Immediately after forming the new government, the Trinamool Congress had asked the finance department to compile a list of liabilities of the previous government. Sources in the department told FE that although the liabilites were estimated at R3,500 crore and the state managed them with borrowings from the market, the total cash deficit for 2011-12 had been estimated at R12,000 crore. In his address in the state assembly, governor MK Narayanan had pegged it at R9,000 crore.

Besides asking for a financial package, the chief minister is likely to push for a R19,0000 crore support from the Planning Commission to implement its annual plan in 2011-12. She will also urge the finance minister to get the R5,000 crore due to the state from Coal India on account of royalty and cess. Kalyan Banerjee, the parliamentary committee chairman on coal and also a Trinamool MP, said the coal ministry had in principle agreed to pay the royalty and cess to West Bengal.

State planning minister Manish Gupta said the previous government had submitted to the Planning Commission an annual plan of R17,000 crore, which Mamata Banerjee?s government had revised to R19,000 crore. He added that it was for the first time that the Planning Commission had started a consultation process with the states to find their actual requirement and then set its Twelfth Plan target.

?West Bengal will utilise this opportunity,? Gupta said, adding since 2011-12 was the last year of the Eleventh Plan period, the government would need to fulfil the Plan period target as much as possible before entering the new Plan period and, therefore, had pitched for an additional R2,000 crore.

In 2010-2011, the state got a sanction of R14,000 crore from the planning commission but a chunk of it was not utilised, Gupta said.